Consumer Spending

Hong Kong citizens are becoming increasingly involved in environmental issues. This is a welcome, healthy trend since if "Hong Kong is our home", as the authorities like to depict it, we have to take better care of it.

Over the past couple of months, the media have been full of articles about how Beijing's latest anti-corruption campaign has dented consumer demand and even contributed to the slowdown in the mainland's overall economic growth.

Air miles are a big part of credit card incentive schemes. People get points for spending, and if they manage their spending and pay their credit card bills each month, they can score a free trip to Thailand.

Japan's economy expanded the most in a year in the past quarter as consumer spending and export gains outweighed the weakest business investment since the wake of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Only last week my esteemed colleague Jake van der Kamp was complaining that there is altogether too much consensus among the Business Post's columnists. Commentators are not meant to be a harmonious society.

Well, Jake, you've got your wish for a healthy dose of adversarial scrappiness, because today the back page is going to pick a fight with the front page.

Barring a breakthrough like "grand bargains" of the past, Washington will implement US$85 billion in spending cuts by September and US$1.2 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years. Economists say this could trim US growth by more than 0.5 per cent this year, which is not good news for the rest of the world. Ironically, there is a bittersweet note to it, with good news on US manufacturing and consumer spending, which are key to global recovery.

Ministry of Commerce figures show spending of 539 billion yuan (HK$665 billion) for the holiday period. Sales of groceries were up nearly 10 per cent, jewellery sales rose 38 per cent and garment sales rose more than 6 per cent, the ministry said.

Rural per capita net income rose 10.7 per cent, against a 9.6 per cent increase for urban dwellers, partly because of the rise in migrant labourers and their wages, the National Bureau of Statistics said. Rural residents' income from benefits payments rose 21.9 per cent, almost double the urban pace, as the government boosted its budget for health-care handouts.

Chinese shoppers this year emerged as the biggest spenders in the global luxury market, thanks largely to their sprees in Europe and the United States.

Shoppers from the mainland, Hong Kong and Macau, accounted for a quarter of global luxury sales this year - for the first time surpassing Americans who bought a fifth of the total, according to global consultancy Bain & Company.

Christmas and Lunar New Year are a blowout season for me: eating, drinking, presents, and an expensive pilgrimage to family overseas. My bonus has paid off overindulgence in previous years, but that and job security are shakier now. Any tips on trimming festive season edges without giving up too much on lifestyle and goodies?

The stuttering growth of the once almighty US economy, especially the sluggish creation of new jobs, is having a profoundly depressing impact worldwide, dragging querulous Europe and even high-flying Asian economies down to earth.